Warm welcome for Waikato med school but warnings new graduates are a decade away
Saturday, 26 July 2025
The green light for a third medical school at the University of Waikato has been welcomed by those on the front line of primary care - but one doctor warns “we’re still 10 years away from seeing the numbers increase”.
The Government announced on Monday it would finally approve the establishment of the country’s third medical school, something the Waikato Times has long lobbied for.
In the wake of the news the Waikato Times spoke to medical practitioners at the front line of the nation’s doctor shortage - something that is especially acute in rural areas. All welcomed the new medical school.
“Pleased and relieved actually,” was the reaction from Dr Luke Bradford, medical director of the College of GPs.
“It’s been a long journey and it’s clear New Zealand doesn’t produce enough doctors.”
Bradford said that, overall, the announcement was “fantastic”, and that he thought it would see fewer young New Zealanders forced to go overseas to get into the medical profession.
“Let’s get our New Zealand kids trained as doctors,” he said. He also said, as a graduate course, it would be “much more primary care based training”.
“People with a little bit more life experience.”
However, he cautioned people not to expect a sudden influx of new doctors any time soon.
The new school would not open until 2028, then it’s as many as six years of training.
“We’re still 10 years away from seeing the numbers increase,” he said.
That was echoed by Hauroa Taiwhenua Rural Health Network chief Dr Grant Davidson.
“First intake 2028, graduate 2032, then registration for two years. We’re talking a while,” he said.
When it came to establishing the new school, he said “the best time was yesterday, the next best time is today”.
Overall, Davidson was also optimistic however, calling it “fantastic news”.
“Long time coming and glad the Government finally made a decision,” he said.
New Zealand is short of GPs - about 130 short, he believed - and rural areas were the worst affected, he said.
Kāwhia GP John Burton also said the announcement is “only the start”.
“Rural communities throughout New Zealand will need to discover what they have to offer for the training of students in a whole new setting,” he said.
“We shall need communities that make trainees welcome and get them involved in their communities, replacing the emphasis from being skilled in technology to also becoming skilled in relating to the people that they will be seeing as patients.”
Burton was clear too about the need for additional frontline staff.
“It saddens me to see how badly primary health care has become eroded in recent years,” he said.
“Workforce shortages have been placing pressure on it. One of the early visible effects was to see general practices say that they couldn’t provide after hours care.
“This has clogged hospital EDs with patients presenting there when they should have been going to their general practices.”
He also said the current shortages were “predicted accurately 20 years ago”.
“But there was no political will to do anything about it,” he said.
“I suspect politicians have a radar that can see only three years into the future.”
He also said he hoped the new school would provide a “shift in focus”.
“We need students committed to working with low socioeconomic and rural areas who are trained to work as teams with nurses, allied health professionals and community-trained health workers.”
“Getting a third medical school built for the increased number of trainees is only the start.”
Harriet Wild, director of policy and research at the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, also welcomed the new school.
However, she described it as an “and and” situation.
“We need more medical students, but we also need to retain medical graduates once they complete their training, and we need to continue to recruit doctors from overseas to address our chronic doctor shortages.”